The Man of Bronze (15 page)

I lifted my pistols, pointing one forward toward the unseen sniper, one back toward the bacon-fat crackle. A moment later, someone called from up ahead. “Lara, dear, how lovely to meet you again.”

I kept quiet. Why give away my position? But it didn’t matter. “Come now, Lara, don’t be shy. I can see you perfectly well with my night-vision scope. You cut a distinctive figure, even wearing a parka. The least you can do is say hello.”

I still held my tongue. If Urdmann wanted chirpy conversation, I’d do my best not to give it to him. Besides, I couldn’t afford to get distracted with talk; the crackling thing behind us was getting closer.

“All right,” Urdmann said with a theatrical sigh, “if you won’t be civil . . . you should know that I’ve got what we both came for. The bronze thigh. It was sitting right here on a pedestal. It’s rather pretty—still brightly polished after all these years. I can see my reflection in it . . . handsome chap that I am.”

He paused. I could imagine a smirk on his porcine face as he waited to see if I’d answer. When I didn’t, he went on. “You probably think the only way out is back the way we came in . . . which would mean I’d have to pass you in order to leave.”

The thought had crossed my mind.

“But guess what?” Urdmann said. “The shamans who built this place made a special escape route direct to the surface. They must have feared getting trapped down here—perhaps if they used the thigh to create something they couldn’t handle. Those shamans may have been lunatics, but they were masters of self-preservation.” He laughed. “I am too. I have no macho need to tangle with you, Lara. I’ll just quietly take my leave. You tend your wounded friend and follow when you’re ready.”

He laughed again, pleased with himself. Urdmann knew I’d never abandon Ilya . . . and with Ilya’s wounded leg, we couldn’t possibly move as fast as Urdmann and his men. They’d reach the surface far ahead of us; they’d race to their copter and get away long before we could pursue. “Farewell, Lara, dear,” Urdmann called. “Rule Britannia, and God save the queen.”

I could hear the sounds of people on the move: our enemies scrambling up the escape tunnel. It occurred to me Urdmann may have deliberately shot Ilya in the leg rather than trying for a kill—if Ilya was dead, there’d be nothing to slow me down. And, of course, Urdmann wouldn’t just shoot
me;
he wanted to humiliate me first, to pay me back for previous indignities I’d heaped on him. Besides, if I was dead, Urdmann wouldn’t have the fun of gloating to my face.

One more score to settle,
I thought.
One more debt to repay, you arrogant toad.

“How are you doing?” I asked Ilya. All this while he’d been packing his wound with bandages. I still didn’t know how badly he’d been hit, and he was doing his best to hide it from me. He’d turned away to treat himself; I couldn’t tell if his secretiveness came from modesty, male pride, or damage so severe he didn’t want it to distract me. Under other circumstances, I’d have smacked him and taken a look for myself . . . but the bacon-crackle sound was so close, I decided I better deal with it before I checked Ilya’s injury. I took a few steps toward the noise . . .

A piece of the floor rose up: featureless, black, and floppy, like a silhouette cut from tar paper. Its cloth-thin shape was humanoid but embellished grotesquely with reindeer antlers and a tail that reminded me of the saber-toothed tiger’s. Bacon-fat sounds sizzled within its dark folds. With a jolt, I realized the noise was the creature’s voice, so degraded it no longer sounded like words. The hiss-spit-crackle was all that remained of a language older than fire. Without doubt, I was facing the last of the shamans—one that somehow had survived the Tunguska blast, though now so withered it had literally become a walking shadow.

“Stay back,” I said, raising my guns. If the murals we’d seen had told the truth, this shaman must have committed many murderous atrocities; but there was no point shooting him in cold blood if he kept his distance. Besides, would bullets faze a flapping shadow who’d lived through a fifteen-megaton blast? Better to try intimidation first, rather than resort to violence.

But I’d wasted my breath. The shadow shaman stretched out his fluttering hand . . . and I knew if that blackness touched me, I’d regret it. I fired both guns point-blank into the thing’s body. Simultaneously, I used the recoil as impetus for a back flip, up, over, and down feetfirst several paces away.

In the dim cavern glow, the dark figure wavered like water. Then it released a flurry of crackles, like a bonfire when dry twigs are tossed in. I feared the sound was laughter: my bullets had passed through the shaman harmlessly. How can you shoot a shadow?

“Silver bullets,” I said. You can never be sure if silver bullets will work against a particular type of creepy crawly, but they’re always worth a try. The VADS instantly delivered the ammo I asked for. Too bad when I fired, the silver rounds had no more effect on the shadow than normal lead.

“Larochka,” said Ilya, not far away. “Take the katana.”

I spun my guns back into their holsters and Ilya tossed me the sword. “Please tell me,” I said, “that a hundred Japanese priests blessed this blade when it was forged and gave it the name Shadow Slayer.”

“Don’t know,” Ilya replied. “Great-grandfather looted it off some dead guy’s corpse.”

“Then we can’t say it
isn’t
named Shadow Slayer.” I turned to the shaman. “You hear that?”

The darkness crackled. I charged.

One good thing about shamans who’ve lived in a hole for millennia: they know bugger all about swordplay. The last time my opponent had tangled with outsiders, pointy sticks were the peak of military technology. The shaman surely realized my katana was a weapon—I held it like a weapon as I sped to the attack—but this throwback to primitive hunters had no experience facing sharp, swinging steel. He raised his shadowy hands in an attempted defensive posture, but his guard wouldn’t have stopped a mosquito. With a feint and a twist and a back cut, I evaded his block and delivered a perfect killing stroke. My blade slashed through his neck with a whisper like silk on silk.

It didn’t decapitate him. I saw no effect at all; the flapping darkness remained unbroken, as black as a mine at midnight. But perhaps Japanese priests
had
blessed the sword against evil, or those old tales were true about cold iron harming supernatural beings. The shaman shrieked as the steel sliced through. He staggered back, then shrieked again. This time the cry came from anger, not pain. Howling in outrage he came at me, his hands clawing the air with murderous fury.

I dodged and swung the katana again—another killing swipe, this time to the body. Any other foe would have been disemboweled; the shaman screamed but kept coming, driving his flimsy frame forward onto the blade like paper impaling itself on a spike. A split second later, his outstretched hand raked my left shoulder . . . and although he was nothing but shadow, his fingers gouged my parka, tossing up goose down in surprised white clouds before stabbing my flesh.

Unlike my howling enemy, I didn’t scream in pain.
Never let the other fellow know you’re hurt.
Blood gushed down my arm from finger-sized holes pierced deep into my deltoid; but I backed off fast and took time to smile before weaving my sword in a sweeping
S
through the shadow man’s torso. He screeched and retreated, no longer giving his bacon-fat laugh.

For another few seconds, we sparred with each other. I could rely on practiced technique: good footwork, trained reflexes, and a wealth of sneaky tricks acquired in the kendo schools of Kyoto. Maybe I couldn’t compete with top Japanese sword masters—maybe—but I could outfight, outthink, and outmaneuver a bronze-wraith bumpkin who hadn’t mixed it up dirty since the Stone Age.

On the other hand, expertise only went so far. Each strike with the katana made the shaman wail in agony, but I never caused tangible damage. When my opponent chose to grit his invisible teeth and plow forward despite the pain, all I could do was back off. I could merely hurt the shaman; he could
gut
me.

Okay. New strategy.

I scrambled back to put a few yards between me and the bad guy, then panted loudly to give the impression I was running out of breath. I also flexed my wounded shoulder with many groans and winces, doing my best to portray a woman stiffening with pain—too bad that wasn’t completely an act. In short, I put on a show to suggest I was weakening. The shaman barreled forward to take advantage of my failing strength. I hesitated, then fled: aiming my feet for the nearest ramp up the side of the cavern.

The shaman pursued, snuffling like a pig after truffles. Inwardly, I rejoiced. Ilya was virtually defenseless on the cavern floor: unable to run and armed only with bullets. If the shaman had headed for my friend, there was little I could do to intervene. Fortunately, the shadow man only had eyes for me. I had hurt him; I had assaulted his dignity; I had
defied
him. After centuries of ruling the subterranean roost—butchering unmutated humans for pleasure, always having his own way—the shaman saw me as a rebellious peon who must be made to suffer.

So he chased me. I ran. To the garden terrace above us—which happened to be a large level patch, almost a small field rather than a mere garden. What had once grown here? Wheat? Rye? Barley? Likely some kind of grain . . . but whatever had thrived here in ages past was long gone now. No light meant no plants.

At the rear of the terrace, another patchwork of animal skins had been staked to the wall. I ran across the bare earth, fast but not
too
fast. I wanted the shaman close on my heels. If I got too far ahead, and if he saw what I intended to do, he might retreat. Then again, if my new strategy didn’t work . . . did I really want the shaman within spitting distance behind me?

No time for doubt. The shaman traveled almost as quickly as I did. He didn’t run—he glided over the ground like a legless ghost. Without looking back, I could tell how close he was behind me; he’d started the bacon-fat crackle again, laughing at my efforts to escape.

You’d think an ancient spellcaster sadist would have more brains. How had this shadow thing lasted so long if he couldn’t tell when he was being played? Then again, maybe
I
was the fool. Maybe the shaman wasn’t afraid because he knew he was in no danger.

Only one way to find out.

As I reached the wall I swung my sword, slashing at the skins that hung there. The sharp katana cut a gash across the pelts. Sunlight flooded forth, gathered by the lens on the other side and focused all around us.

The shaman shrieked. This time the sound wasn’t pain, it was fear.

I swept the katana again, slicing off more of the animal hides that held back the light. More sun poured in. The shaman reversed course and fled, making a squirrellike chitter as it fled the brightness. “Too late,” I said. One more swing of the sword and the lens was completely uncovered. I shifted the lens in its frame to bathe the shaman with channeled sunbeams.

You know what happens to shadows at daybreak: they’re dispelled by rosy-fingered dawn. Most shadows don’t give earsplitting screams as they vanish, but apart from that, it was the same old, same old.

I jogged back to Ilya. He was still in one piece and had bandaged his bullet wound. “I heard the screams,” he said. “Glad to see they came from shadow man rather than you. What did you do?”

“I enlightened him,” I said . . . then regretted it. As a peer of the realm, I should hold myself to a higher standard than bad movie gag lines.

Ilya put his arm around my neck, and I propped him up as we crossed the cavern. A few times his bad leg gave out and he lost his balance, clutching at me for support. When he grabbed my injured shoulder, it hurt. A lot. The cave’s weak light wouldn’t allow a good look at my wounds, but I could see feathers from the ripped parka sticking to the dark grit of my blood. Feathers had likely been driven into the punctures, too—a fine way to bring on infection. But something told me we didn’t have time to deal with my injuries. The sooner we got back to the surface, the happier I’d be.

The cavern ended in a crude stage area—an expanse of stone several feet higher than the rest of the cave’s floor. This would be the tabernacle: the shamans’ unholy of unholies, where they kept the bronze thigh and committed their greatest atrocities. In the middle of the space stood a plain stone pedestal the height and shape of a birdbath. It must have been the bronze thigh’s resting place.

Not anymore. The pedestal was empty.

A tunnel opened at the rear of the tabernacle: the escape route Urdmann had mentioned. He must have been standing in the tunnel’s mouth as he spoke to us—probably with his sniper rifle propped against the surrounding stone. But the opening was empty now; Urdmann and his men had scarpered.

From the cavern’s main floor, Ilya and I approached the raised area with caution. I couldn’t believe our enemies had simply fled without leaving a nasty surprise: a booby trap on the ramp to the tabernacle or something in the escape tunnel. Lancaster Urdmann was not the type to make a peaceful exit. I kept a keen watch for trip wires and electric-eye triggers as we climbed to the shamans’ sacred dais.

Nothing. But as I placed my foot on the stage, something went
woomph
in the escape tunnel. I pushed Ilya down and threw myself on top of him . . . but nothing further happened. Nothing but Ilya’s profane protests that (a) he wasn’t some frail old granny who needed me shielding his body, and (b) would I please get off him because I was hurting his %*$#&! leg.

I rolled off my friend and stood up. The escape tunnel’s mouth was now blocked with tumbled ice and snow: a thick barricade of it, freshly fallen from above.

“Oh, very nice,” I growled. “He’s shut us in with an avalanche.” The
woomph
must have been an explosion set off by Urdmann as he left the tunnel: an explosion that dropped a load of Siberian winter to seal off the shaft.

“Don’t fret, Larochka,” Ilya said. “We can make it back the long way. I can’t move fast, and we may meet more monsters, but . . . oh.”